


Joining the Vigil

by Aly_H



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Gen, If you squint - Tabris/Nate (but Carver hasn't noticed yet and this is from his perspective mostly), Vigil's Keep, Warden Carver, heavy on the found family tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 06:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aly_H/pseuds/Aly_H
Summary: After near-death in the Deep Roads Carver has joined the Wardens, given over to the command of the famous Hero of Ferelden he finds himself adjusting to having a new home at Vigil’s Keep.





	Joining the Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> This was also posted earlier on my tumblr, but I was being too lazy to do the whole Ao3 form then. ^^'

Sigrun hopped up on the fence, watching with amusement beside the some of the other Wardens of the Vigil what was going on. Carver glanced at her sideways, curious as to if the spritely dwarf was going to make a comment or just keep eating her apple.

Linea and Velanna had taken bets on ‘who has to babysit the puppy’ for the Amaranthine patrol a little ways down. The loser would be going with _him_ to the city. He found himself missing sweet Merrill whenever he spent too much time in the company of the wickedly sharp elf women of the Vigil.

Velanna was one of the Commander’s first recruits, and a mage. One of the Dalish like his friend in Kirkwall. Linea was a convict, the murderer’s brand still clear on her right hand whenever she went without gloves. She’d been gifted by to the Wardens by crown – a chance to undergo the Joining and serve instead of the gallows. Not that anyone seemed to know _who_ she’d murdered.

Two weeks in the Vigil, as he finished recovering from the Joining and he’d finally been permitted to join one of the patrols further out from the castle fortress.

“Do we need an audience?” Nathaniel Howe sighed, glancing over his shoulder to them.

“ _You_ don’t, but we all know that the Commander performs better when he’s putting on a show,” Sigrun replied cheerfully. “Just pretend we’re not here!”

The nobly born archer was one of the few sources of quiet sanity in this place, Carver had decided, even if his father _was_ the Butcher of Denerim.

He’d made the mistake of asking directly about _that_ too - which had earned him an annoyed glare from the taciturn archer, though the awkward tension had soon been eased by the Commander’s dramatic sigh from the head of the supper table, “You’d think murdering _four_ shem nobles and their men would be enough to get me a fancy title like that, but _noooo_. No fancy nickname for the stabby elf.”

“I believe the Hero of Ferelden _has_ an epithet,” Nathaniel had remarked dryly, the tension drained from his shoulders and the slightest smile on his lips. If he’d not spent so much time learning Fenris’s dry humor Carver would have missed it.

The Hero of Ferelden was an elf from Denerim’s alienage, he knew that from the stories. Copper colored hair that had at first reminded him of Aveline’s (though he could never see Aveline growing hers out nearly so long nor making such a fuss over keeping it neat and well groomed – he’d _seen_ how many lotions and oils the Commander had just for his tresses). Sharp eyes that he had yet to figure out if they were gray or hazel that seemed to catch just about everything with a laugh and a wink.

Evander Tabris was the sort of trouble that Carver was certain that his elder sibling would have taken to in a heartbeat. The man who had slain the last Archdemon to rise over Thedas also insisted on being called _Van_. Though most of the Wardens seemed to alternate between his name and Commander depending on the context. Oghren being the only one who consistently used the nickname.

“We’ve got to see who wins this time so we know whose got puppy sitting duty,” Linea explained, using her knife to fix a nail as if she were bored and not watching the two archers as they prepared for their competition.

“If you two are going to keep picking on him why don’t I take him to Amaranthine instead? We only just got him, and I promised Stroud I wouldn’t let you lot break him too quickly.”

“The Queen’s visit is tomorrow afternoon,” Nathaniel frowned at the Commander. “It hardly counts as an emergency if you engineer an excuse to go Darkspawn hunting to avoid her.”

“I’m not avoiding her, I’m avoiding arguing with Cousland over my recruiting _you_ again. Fergus is a dog with a bone. Are you _certain_ that they’re not werewolves? Fergus makes Swift-Runner seem downright amenable.”

Nathaniel shook his head, trying to hide a soft chuckle as he checked over his bow. Howe’s recruitment was a touchy subject. It was clear the Wardens saw him as one of their own but to most of Ferelden he was still Rendon Howe’s son.

Though Van’s emphasis on second chances losing him friends and allies alike was still most famously noted in his recruiting the Hero of River Dane to the Wardens. Carver had listened to the drunk in the Hanged Man who claimed he had been a Warden.

Carver wondered now if that drunken Alistair was the same one that Van spoke of sometimes when he spoke of the Blight. A brother Warden who Van felt he had failed with kindness. He couldn’t help but think if it were the same man that they were idiots for not simply _talking_ but…how often had he lashed out or pulled away from his own blood rather than listen?

He was _still_ being stubborn about writing them.

Maker he was still cross that Evander had been the one to write to his mother in Kirkwall – to make sure that Leandra knew her son had survived the Joining and was among the Wardens at Vigil’s Keep. Carver had been being obstinate regarding it. Now…he wished he had enough courage to write properly but…he didn’t know what to say. Not yet.

“If you’re that concerned about me going you’ll just have to give up bragging rights as the best marksman in the Vigil, Nate.”

“And risk us all perishing under the weight of your pride? Forgive me if I think that would be a poor decision. Will you go first, Evander?”

“It’s _Van_ , I sound too much like one of those heroes out of stories when it’s ‘Evander’.”

“No one tell him he _is_ one of those heroes out of stories,” Sigrun joked, elbowing Carver with a grin.

He found himself grinning back.

The Wardens were a strange family but they fit together the way that those Varric and his sibling had drawn together did…and unlike in the Kirkwall crew he had a place here, or he felt like he did anyways. It was new and a little unfamiliar and he was _still_ stuck being the little brother but he wasn’t in anyone’s shadow.

Well no more than every Warden in Thedas was firmly stuck in Evander Tabris’s shadow. It was difficult to top destroying an Archdemon and ending the Blight almost single-handedly.

“He will figure it out, eventually,” Velanna sighed. “He must, mustn’t he?”

Linea snorted: “I wouldn’t count on it. Tabris skulls are made _extra_ thick.”

“Not half as hard as a Kingsworthy skull though,” Van grinned, stepping back to let Nathaniel take his shot.

One of the red feathered arrows placed neatly at the center of the target. The black feathered one that followed from the human’s bow was nestled even closer to the center.

Carver found himself chuckling – it was annoying that the lot of them insisted on referring to him as their ‘puppy’ the moment they found out he was Ferelden.

Yeah, maybe he wasn’t too thrilled with the promise of a hard life filled with Darkspawn and taint and hardship but if this was what it was like to live as a Warden too maybe he didn’t need to dread what the future held _quite_ so much?

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! ^^
> 
> I'm going to be using the "In a Quiver" series to group short stories involving Evander and Nathaniel as a pairing. This one doesn't cover it but is set in the same world state. The stories will be sorted chronologically.


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